Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel write for Real Cities:
The Bush administration is escalating its confrontation with Iran, sending an additional aircraft carrier and minesweepers into the Persian Gulf as it accuses the Islamic regime in Tehran of arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq for attacks on American troops.
A new U.S. intelligence estimate on Friday, however, concluded that Iranian and other outside meddling is “not likely” a major cause of the bloodshed in Iraq, and a new McClatchy analysis of U.S. casualties in Iraq found that Sunni Muslim insurgents, not Iranian-backed Shiites, have mounted most – but not all – of the attacks on American forces.
[…]
Intelligence officials said the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has used weapons from Iran to kill Americans in Iraq. But Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed Friday that the administration isn’t sure whether Iran’s leaders sanctioned the arms shipments to Iraq or whether rogue elements are behind them.
[…]
Some experts, citing Bush’s order to send more U.S. air and naval forces to the Persian Gulf, worry that President Bush is exaggerating the Iranian role to build a case for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.Bush and his top aides deny that they’ve been exaggerating Iran’s role in Iraq, saying it should be seen in the context of Tehran’s efforts to dominate the oil-rich Persian Gulf, strengthen Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and bolster Shiite political power in Lebanon and other Arab countries with large Shiite populations.
Bush, meanwhile, finds himself in a difficult position:
“The administration is between a rock and a hard place here,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking anonymously because the intelligence on Iran is highly classified. “On one hand, they have to convince people here and abroad that this time they’re telling the truth and they’ve got the goods, which won’t be easy. And a lot of our friends in the region, like the Saudis and the Israelis and the Lebanese, are nervous and want us to get tough with Iran.”
As the authors of the article point out, the NIE report ‘said that “lethal support” from Iran to Shiite militants “clearly intensifies” the conflict, but isn’t a significant factor.’
One anonymous U.S. intelligence official summarized the situation as follows:
“Are the Iranians mucking around in Iraq? You bet. Do they want to make sure they’ve got a government in Baghdad that’s simpatico instead of another war? Yep. But are they fighting a secret war against the Americans in Iraq? We have no evidence of that.”
Does all of this mean that the Bush administration is wrong? Does all of this mean that the use of force against Iran is unwarranted? I’d say no. What it does mean is that Bush et al. have to make a very strong case.
One thing they could use: The newspaper Spits reported yesterday that the Dutch Minister of domestic affairs Johan Remkes that certain countries are spying in the Netherlands and are actively trying to influence immigrants. What exact countries he didn’t want to say, but every Dutch newspaper connects the dods: the head of the Dutch intelligence service Sybrand van Hulst, said in April last year that Iran tried to get its hands on secret knowledge about weapons of mass destruction.”
Some might say that Bush chose the wrong war. He’ll have a hard time convincing the American people that Iran can only be stopped by the use of force.
More importantly: it seems that Iran is hurting. Hurting badly. It seems that the current approach might prove to be enough. I’m not declaring victory, but I am becoming more positive. I believed that only force could stop the Mullahs, I’m now more open to the idea that force may not be required.
However, it seems to me that one must be prepared to use force. Although some think that Ahmadinejad is looking forward to a war with the U.S. it seems to me that a U.S. attack will damage Iran’s economy so badly that there is not much economy left. The Mullahs seem to fear an attack. For that reason alone the U.S. should not make the pressure less.
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